The Many Faces of Marc Jacobs: 10 Years of Runway Hair and Makeup from Fashion’s Favorite Rebel

With tonight’s highly anticipated Marc Jacobs show just a few hours away, editors, models, and photographers are looking forward to a moment of madcap theatrical shock. In recent years, the designer has collaborated with backstage hair whiz Guido Palau and makeup legend François Nars to deliver a predictably unpredictable dose of beauty fantasy, spiked with an element of surprise—be it 64 different club-kid inspired updos, or an army of major models rendered unrecognizable beneath their graphic black wigs.

But it wasn’t always this way. It was only ten years ago, at his fall 2005 show, that Jacobs sent a glowing, fresh-faced Gemma Ward down the runway in a cap sleeve, empire-waisted black dress, her easy hair and no-makeup makeup resurfacing the following fall on a beachy Daria Werbowy. Color crept into the lineup in the form of a few bright red and royal blue bobs (custom dyed for the show by colorist Laurie Foley) at the designer’s fall 2007 show. By spring, it was halos of teased hair followed by severely parted buns, accelerating to everything from clouds of brushed-out curls accented by oversize floral pins to heavy rims of kohl liner. (Side note: In 2013, the designer made his love of character-defining color official, launching his own exuberant line of Marc Jacobs makeup.)